#890236 exim4-daemon-heavy: /usr/sbin/exim4 -bV with log_selector = arguments logs to stderr

Package:
exim4-daemon-heavy
Source:
exim4
Description:
Exim MTA (v4) daemon with extended features, including exiscan-acl
Submitter:
Paul Slootman
Date:
2026-02-05 17:39:03 UTC
Severity:
normal
#890236#5
Date:
2018-02-12 10:37:44 UTC
From:
To:
After upgrading from 4.89-2 to 4.90-1.1 I get a mail from the cron.daily
run, due to /usr/sbin/exim4 -bV outputting this line to stderr instead
of to /var/log/exim4/mainlog like it used to:

2018-02-12 11:34:05.084 [29152] cwd=/tmp 2 args: /usr/sbin/exim4 -bV

I do have "arguments" included in my log_selector, I find it useful to
see that, in the mainlog. Apparently something has changed so that it
now logs to stderr.

Please revert to the old behaviour.


Thanks,
Paul
#890236#10
Date:
2018-02-12 18:04:19 UTC
From:
To:
Hello,
I am unable to verify that exim's behavior has changed from 4.89-2 to
4.90.1-1 in this respect:
ametzler@argenau:/tmp/EXIM4$ exim4-daemon-light_4.89-1_amd64/usr/sbin/exim4 -bV > /dev/null
2018-02-12 19:02:03 cwd=/tmp/EXIM4 2 args: exim4-daemon-light_4.89-1_amd64/usr/sbin/exim4 -bV
ametzler@argenau:/tmp/EXIM4$ exim4-daemon-light_4.90.1-1_amd64/usr/sbin/exim4 -bV > /dev/null
2018-02-12 19:02:17 cwd=/tmp/EXIM4 2 args: exim4-daemon-light_4.90.1-1_amd64/usr/sbin/exim4 -bV

cu Andreas
#890236#15
Date:
2018-02-12 19:17:05 UTC
From:
To:
Hmm, I was upgrading a bunch of systems yesterday, it could be that the
system with the "arguments" in log_selector was another one, previously
running 4.84.2-2+deb8u1.


Paul
#890236#20
Date:
2018-02-18 17:37:16 UTC
From:
To:
Control: forwarded -1 https://bugs.exim.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2243
[...]

Hello,

I have rebuilt 4.84.2-2+deb8u1 on sid and did not see a different
behavior. However running exim in a jessie chroot shows the "old"
behavior you described. (stretch does not). So I think this might have
been caused by changes outside exim.

cu Andreas
#890236#27
Date:
2018-02-18 19:41:16 UTC
From:
To:
I tried to find a copy of 4.89-2 (for amd64) to check whether
downgrading again would fix it, but I failed to find that version :(


Paul